Slashdot Mirror
Bin Laden Raid Member To Be WikiLeaks Witness
the simurgh writes in with the latest in the court-martial of Bradley Manning. "A military judge cleared the way Wednesday for a member of the team that raided Osama bin Laden's compound to testify at the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning charged in the WikiLeaks massive classified document leak. Col. Denise Lind ruled for the prosecution during a court-martial pretrial hearing. Prosecutors say the witness, presumably a Navy SEAL, collected digital evidence showing that the al-Qaida leader requested and received from an associate some of the documents Manning has acknowledged leaking. Defense attorneys had argued that proof of receipt wasn't relevant to whether Manning aided the enemy, the most serious charge he faces, punishable by life imprisonment. 'The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the intelligence is given to and received by the enemy,' Lind said. The judge disagreed."
The mass surveillance and mass interception that is occurring to all of us now who use the internet is also a mass transfer of power from individuals into extremely sophisticated state and private intelligence organizations and their cronies like Google. The Pentagon is maintaining a line that WikiLeaks inherently, as an institution that tells military and government whistleblowers to step forward with information, is a crime. They allege we are criminal, moving forward. Now, the new interpretation of the Espionage Act that the Pentagon is trying to hammer in to the legal system, and which the Department of Justice is complicit in, would mean the end of national security journalism in the United States.
This would basically mean that nobody could report on wars, because anyone doing so could be accused of aiding the enemy. Imagine a version of this where Bin Laden said, "Get me a copy of the New York Times!" and the government accused reporters of aiding the enemy.
Palm trees and 8
Covering up war crimes is or should be a much bigger crime.
Just wait for the veterans to come along and tell us (like they usually do in this discussion), that as a soldier you swear to uphold the constitution, not support cover-ups, that you pledge allegiance to the country, not to the general or even president, and even that you salute the uniform of your superior, not the person wearing it.
Your suggestions that war crimes should be reported to the people trying to cover up said war crimes and not to anyone else is plain and simple support for covering up war crimes.
There's a big difference between classified documents that are meant to be secret and classifying every single thing in case something embarrasing is in them.
Covering up war crimes is or should be a much bigger crime.
Should be...
The people behind Abu Ghraib go free, Bradley gets screwed for ratting on his leaders. So it goes.
No sig today...
"He is not being prosecuted for releasing weather reports, stock values, or a crossword puzzle"
What he HAS released hasn't been shown to be of any more aid to OBL than these would be.
Classified information cannot, repeat CANNOT, be used to hide criminal acts.
Classified information incorrectly classified is NOT validly classified and almost all classified information SHOULD NOT be classified. If the rules for classification AS APPLIED are "Classify everything", then the classification cannot be of any guide as to whether the information SHOULD be classified and kept secret.
Manning is on trial for exposing the criminal acts of his superiors.
Something his superiors predecessors insisted should be done in all cases. cf Nuremberg.
BS.
His conversations with that douchebag LAME-O were mainly a discussion about his personal moral dilemma. He wasn't bragging about his "hacking skills" one bit. He had access to the information so there was no technical prowess required.
He recently made a statement in court (which of course the government didn't want the public to hear) that was surreptitiously recorded. You should listen to it.